If this is your first visit, be sure to
check out the FAQ by clicking the
link above. You may have to register
before you can post: click the register link above to proceed. To start viewing messages,
select the forum that you want to visit from the selection below.

Your lest favorite thing to do in making a route

What is your lest favorite thing to do in making a route? Mine is finding a building that will fit in the space left for it.

I seam to spend a lot of time finding one that will fit, There is a lot of BIG building out there, but I cant find a small one most of the time. Almost makes me want to try to figure out to make what I want, however don't have time for that right now.

Laying a gradient on a DEM ... Sometimes you can lay 15 miles in one night, and other times 5 miles takes several days ... usually it is a real roller coaster of up and down ridiculous +6.57% and -5.89% grades

Well I have two pet hates. The first is tunnels, even with the dighole system these are just horrible to do and get looking right. After 16 years of the game N3V need to find a better way of doing it.

Towns/built up areas. I really hate doing these as unless you accept the fudge of placing down a few random houses can become a real time sink getting scenery done on urban routes.

Re gradients - can't say these ever trouble me. If I have the profile I'll use that for reference but if not I'll just average it over 1000 - 1500 metres (maybe less in the hills) and set the gradient tool accordingly.

Finding small buildings is tough I agree, but I've setup favorites with my authors I use often and know pretty much what they've created. Dave Snow and some others have some really nice buildings which are small enough to fit here and there and not all those gigantic ones which never seem to fit well. Building towns and cities is painful, I agree. I think in part this is due to having to align up each and every building one at a time instead of having a single click to make all building the same angle and same height.

My biggest peeve is floating objects and splines. There's nothing worse than finding and fixing floating tracks, roads, and objects. I spend a goodly amount of time fiddling around with this to ensure things are in place.

And finally I can't wait for grass to become a turf effect. I really hate placing grass clumps and splines because they float over edges sometimes a lot too in some places, and also due to not being able to get them thick enough to look good without killing frame rates. The Grazzy grass is nice, but too thick in some cases and I hate too in general how the splines "just end" abruptly without a real way of blending them into the background even with good texturing.

And finally I can't wait for grass to become a turf effect. I really hate placing grass clumps and splines because they float over edges sometimes a lot too in some places, and also due to not being able to get them thick enough to look good without killing frame rates. The Grazzy grass is nice, but too thick in some cases and I hate too in general how the splines "just end" abruptly without a real way of blending them into the background even with good texturing.

Look up the author "Toxa_Batoxa" on the DLS. He has some really nice grass splines, grass objects, trees, and bushes. They're all seasonal as well and not as thick as the Grazzy grasses.

My biggest issue with making routes is separated into two categories, Prototypical Routes and Fictional Routes.

First off the issue I find with making prototypical routes is that they require lots and lots of custom made content, and depending on how much you need or how long that custom content is made, it can really bog down your route progress. Another issue I find that while DEM's are a excellent way to get started on making these routes Cascade made a great point that DEM's don't really give you the correct track gradients and it causes you to make a lot of edits to the ground terrain to get the correct level of gradient.

Then the issue I find with Fictional routes, well its very difficult to start making one right from the start. I remember it took me ages to figure out what I was going to do with to start making on (Should I start the route in a more mountain setting, or a city setting, or a more rural setting). Its only when I got the route pretty well started is when the creative juices start to flow, and it makes building fictional routes a lot easier to build once you have a starting point.

Look up the author "Toxa_Batoxa" on the DLS. He has some really nice grass splines, grass objects, trees, and bushes. They're all seasonal as well and not as thick as the Grazzy grasses.

I've used those and they're not bad. The last update though was a killer as it required going back to backups and restoring content due to an error in his mesh table. The ability to paint the grass on is the way to go, but it won't be here for awhile.

Surely amongst all the available content on the DLS it would be possible to find content that matches the period and style of the route you are modelling? Certainly, in the real world all stations, for example, will differ in some aspects of their design and/or construction. But does this mean that you have to create every building, every fence post as it actually was in real life? If that was the case, you would never finish a prototypical route. At least with historical routes where all the original buildings, even the old right of way, have long disappeared, no-one is going to criticise your selection of content. [I stand corrected - there will always be a few who will]

Then the issue I find with Fictional routes, well its very difficult to start making one right from the start.

I agree. With prototypical routes you have track plans, photographs, maps, etc as your starting point. With fictional routes you only have your imagination ... perhaps that is the problem? But the hardest part I find with fictional routes is knowing when and where to stop. [Hmmm ... it could do with another tunnel here ... how about I extended it a bit further to put in another junction .... it needs more river crossings .... etc]

EDIT: I think Philskene has the right idea for fictional routes. Start by limiting yourself to a set number (the fewer the better) of baseboards and don't extend.

Last edited by pware; March 13th, 2018 at 05:11 PM.

A member of the "Party Machine". Now if only I could remember where they are holding the party!

My biggest issue with making routes is separated into two categories, Prototypical Routes and Fictional Routes.

First off the issue I find with making prototypical routes is that they require lots and lots of custom made content, and depending on how much you need or how long that custom content is made, it can really bog down your route progress. Another issue I find that while DEM's are a excellent way to get started on making these routes Cascade made a great point that DEM's don't really give you the correct track gradients and it causes you to make a lot of edits to the ground terrain to get the correct level of gradient.

Then the issue I find with Fictional routes, well its very difficult to start making one right from the start. I remember it took me ages to figure out what I was going to do with to start making on (Should I start the route in a more mountain setting, or a city setting, or a more rural setting). Its only when I got the route pretty well started is when the creative juices start to flow, and it makes building fictional routes a lot easier to build once you have a starting point.

Having a theme is helpful here and then sticking to it. A fictional route can be just like a prototypical route except it's landscape is made up, and with a backstory and theme kept in context of the landscape, will make for a very convincing railroad.

DEM gradients aren't necessarily inaccurate and is dependent upon the underlying data to being with as well as using a 10 m grid instead of 5 meter with it's higher resolution. The other thing too is set the track spline points over longer distances rather than at shorter intervals and then approximate the grade in between with a smoothed track and landscape. The points you use in your track are based on the track profile and by measurements on Google Earth, which I found pretty close to what I found on the DEM and on the original topographic maps I used for my surface texture.

The issue though with prototypical routes is as you said content. Even if we find something that's similar to what is in the real place, we feel we're cheated because we know it's wrong. This is especially true of areas we know very well, and for that reason I found it difficult to work on my own hometown more than once when I tried building it.

Surely amongst all the available content on the DLS it would be possible to find content that matches the period and style of the route you are modelling? Certainly, in the real world all stations, for example, will differ in some aspects of their design and/or construction. But does this mean that you have to create every building, every fence post as it actually was in real life? If that was the case, you would never finish a prototypical route. At least with historical routes where all the original buildings, even the old right of way, have long disappeared, no-one is going to criticise your selection of content. [I stand corrected - there will always be a few who will

You would think so, but in my case I have found it to be not so. That's why I have spent ten years making a 5-mile route and it's still not finished to my satisfaction. I have had to custom build almost every building, for example;

Having a theme is helpful here and then sticking to it. A fictional route can be just like a prototypical route except it's landscape is made up, and with a backstory and theme kept in context of the landscape, will make for a very convincing railroad.

DEM gradients aren't necessarily inaccurate and is dependent upon the underlying data to being with as well as using a 10 m grid instead of 5 meter with it's higher resolution. The other thing too is set the track spline points over longer distances rather than at shorter intervals and then approximate the grade in between with a smoothed track and landscape. The points you use in your track are based on the track profile and by measurements on Google Earth, which I found pretty close to what I found on the DEM and on the original topographic maps I used for my surface texture.

The issue though with prototypical routes is as you said content. Even if we find something that's similar to what is in the real place, we feel we're cheated because we know it's wrong. This is especially true of areas we know very well, and for that reason I found it difficult to work on my own hometown more than once when I tried building it.

Very interesting John, Thanks for the few helpful tips especially those about DEM's Gradients, Which is giving me a huge headache right now with my IRM route, because I know (Since I volunteer there) that their track is not all completely flat and includes what we call in the midwest a rolling hill gradient which there is slight up and down gradients going on like a Roller Coster, and what makes its worse for me is that there are slight gradients in the museum area as well where all of those complex switches are. Perhaps we can move this discussion to a PM.

As for your views on Content, I totally agree, Custom scenery content is all so important to make the route look right, this is why I envy groups like Jointed Rail, Trainz Forge and Trainz Italia who have a whole team of content creators working together as a team to make a prototypical route where they don't need to worry about the lack of custom content holding up their route progress because they are all content creators. People like you and me John are not content creators and we have to find people to make content for us to add to our routes and its a difficult process (one that I been having major problems with) as Ive only been able to find only 2 people to accept the offer. But I do noticed something that content creators seemed to be more willing to make locomotives and rolling stock over scenery as I have found out, as I have well over between 10 to 15 people who were interested in making stuff in that category. But yeah its important to have a well run team of content creators onboard to make prototypical routes, especially in this day and age of high and intensive attention towards details, which is a far cry from the days of Trainz 2004 and Trainz 2006 when I can remember making a route was not so focused on attention to every little detail.

I am not worried about the tree to tree detail most of you- so my peeve sofar might seem very basic or not even a sweat for you guys- but I hate setting up the multiple new industry to the right amount of goods, direction of goods, car type to use, etc - i love when i find something basic like a forestry i can use the already programmed ones. - but setting up all those numbers and details in multiple new bugs me.

Trying to recreate my old ho Scale 4x12 layout, in trainz. so finding the right type of building for it that will fit is the problem I am having. Spent about a hour today to find two building for it. Think I might have to cheat on the size to get ever thing to fit.